Monthly Archives: March 2015

Got a bigger canvas, which unfortunately was not stretched decently enough to try out a big painting. I didn’t want to trash it of course, so I took a chance and made a couple of other small wet-on-wet sketches. I had a reference image for the first 2, while other ones are totally from imagination (and I guess it’s noticeable!). Also, the new canvas (first 3 pictures) has a really nasty tooth which I don’t like at all.

Also, Nickel Azo Yellow seems to be mixing a bit better with ultramarine (last one), while lemon yellow appears to be too weak, losing its tinting properties when mixed with white (first and third).

I finally (somehow) managed to get around the excessively wet background when dealing with Bob Ross’s wet on wet oils technique. As far as I can tell, the secret is all in applying as little paint as possible, same for the white medium, which I made up mixing titanium white and linseed oil in roughly 50/50 proportion. Got a very small amount on the brush, and put it on the canvas with circular motion, keeping the brush itself perpendicular to the surface. Having a light striking on it, I could tell which areas had too much by the excessive sheen on them.
The canvas was actually not completely white, but definitely dirty because of previous tests, that’s why the following look, needless to say, “polluted” 😀

Yes, the foreground mountain is totally off, and the snow in the shadow part is reflecting a blue sky that is not there 😀 Still, the point was getting it on evenly and letting it fall off the palette knife nicely.In this one, I brushed in the background peaks using a filbert only, to try to achieve a (somehow) depth of field effect. Might be eccessively blurred though!

I’ve been recently tried to wrap up what I know about oils… and ended up realizing I can’t reasonably dive into Bob Ross’s wet-on-wet technique without having, at least, explored the medium’s capabilities a bit more in depth. Therefore, I decided to challenge myself in the traditional (somehow :D) oil painting technique, layer after layer, week after week. Here is where I got. The first image is just the base sketch on a toned ground, shaded ever so slightly to give it a defined shape:

Then, the main values’ underpainting, Burnt Umber (which I also used for the sketch above) and Titanium White onlyI’m particularly happy with the rose, so far. Of course, I hope I won’t mess it all up with color!
Geez, this is going to be long 😀